Developing interactive classroom exercises for use with mobile devices to enhance class engagement and problem-solving skills

A recent Pew research center study of mobile device usage revealed that, African American and Latinos are the most active users of the Internet from mobile devices. The study also revealed that minority cell phone owners take advantage of a much greater range of their phone´s features compared with people of other ethnicities. At Winston Salem State University (WSSU), it is common for students to multitask and use their mobile devices while in class for studying, or performing other activities. This paper reports our ongoing experiences running a National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored targeted Infusion Project (TIP) in Computer Science Department that aims to leverage this situation by developing a mobile classroom response system (MRS) to allow students solve interactive problems in their mobile devices in order to improve their class engagement and problem solving skills. By allowing them to solve problems in their preferred devices, the project expects to create a friendly learning environment where the students want to retain, be active and skillful.